#162 - Taylor Somerville
Taylor Somerville - Founder of Symmetry Live and XPT Life Master Coach
This episode was brought to you by Hauora - a performance wellbeing growth partner. Hauora aims to educate and impact individual and organisational culture to ignite health, wellbeing, and performance. Find out more at www.HauoraLife.com
Description
Taylor worked in the investment business for over 15 years until 2017, when he decided to transition his career to focus full-time on health and fitness. He founded his own company, Symmetry. Taylor is an XPT Master Coach (affiliated with our previous guest PJ Nestler, Gabby Reece, and Laird Hamilton) and certified with the Art of Breath. Symmetry focuses on helping busy people regain control of their life, so one has more time, energy, and less stress.
Today we speak about what made Taylor move out of the investment business and what that whole process was like. We unpack key tenets for Taylor including breath, mindset, and lifestyle - and dive into eustress in particular. Taylor talks about why nasal breathing is massively important for us, and how he trains people on cold exposure to sauna immersion - and the benefits of this.
We speak about relationships and empathy, pugs, and what XPT did for Taylor for growth and change agency. Taylor educates us on what we would eat in Tuscaloosa, what's on the horizon...and also - what it was like building his own business, plus why he did it. This was fun!
In this episode we discuss 🗣
🌅 Taylor’s winning morning routine
🦶 Taking a big step in changing career
💨 Breathwork as a tool to regulate our state
🧠 Mindset and habit shifts in daily transition periods
📲 Taking a month off social media and its effects
😗 Why breathwork and hot/cold therapies last the test of time
👃 Nasal breathing, grounding, and performance breathing
🌠 Small shifts in behaviour for long term gains
😎 Use your actions to take ownership of your life
Key Timestamps
(0:39) - Taylor's winning morning routine
(2:32) - Working on the trading floor in investments
(3:50) - Personal and professional stress from job
(4:11) - Taking stock and how everything changed rapidly
(9:06) - Doing XPT course with Olympians and pro athletes
(11:43) - Knowing the why behind Symmetry
(12:54) - Adapting to the virtual world.
(13:55) - Breathwork as a tool to regulate our state in
(14:37) - Mindset + Habit shift, in type A personalities
(15:58) - Using exercises to take ownership over your action
(16:30) - Small shifts in behaviour for long term gains
(19:11) - Taylor 6 factors for a good life
(21:22) - Taking a month off Social media
(23:25) - Taylor's downtime and hobbies
(26:23) - Nasal breathing, grounding, and performance breaking
(27:48) - Techniques that work last the test of time
(28:57) - We're built as humans to face discomfort
(29:45) - Breathing control practice
(32:23) - What's next for Taylor
(35:07) - What high performance means to Taylor